Human extinction
Also see: Mass extinction Humans, just like any species, are not immortal. We have ways of predicting and avoiding the extinction of species, including ourselves, and perhaps someday ways to expand into the galaxy so wide we could never be immediatly wiped out (or at least our descendants). While a particular event might not cause exctinction outright, it could weaken a species (such as ours) and set it on an inevitable decline, or otherwise directly affect future survival. This is a list of several proposed ways we could go extinct. *Metasability event: Chemical & physical laws change. *Climate Change: Period of intense warming or cooling. Changes in temperature could have vast effects on climate and ecology, including a decrease in crop production that could lead to widespread famine and political instability. This problem would be mitigated if we colonize other planets or created artifical environments large scale. *Geomagnetic reversal: North and south poles switch and fluctuate, affecting radio signals and electrical grids, as well as weakening the earth's magetic field protecting us from cosmic radation. *Stranglet: an entity of strange matter that consumes normal matter, Earth. *Polar Axial shift: the Earth's axis tilts to the east or west, changing ocean currents and climate. As with Global climate change of any kind, a decrease in crop production could lead to widespread famine and political instability. *Black hole: an entity that sucks everything (including light) in its opening. *Global pandemic: a disease that kills many people and spreads quickly (AIDS, SARS, Ebola, Influenza). *Asteroid/Comet impact: when a large body from space collides with earth. *Gamma ray burst: a gamma ray is fired from the Hypernova of a Supermassive star which could sterilize half of earth life outright, and both deplete the ozone layer and create nitrous oxide clouds leading to severe climatic changes affecting the biosphere. *Nuclear war: Bombs are dropped on major cities killing millions instantly and potentially destroying civilization; radioactive fallout and nuclear winter/summer impacting future survival. Even limited nuclear exchange (such as Pakistan vs. India) could affect global climate. *Supervolcanic eruption: a super volcano will blow up the surrounding land (ex.Yellowstone national park, Lake Tambora) the pyroclastic flows and "volcano rain" cover and destroy places in a 2000 or so mile radius and the climate change that follows devastates the planet. *CME/Solar Storm: The Sun ejects a CME (Coronal Mass Ejection), that would interfere with atmospheric conditions, global electricity grids, satellites, and radio waves. *Supernova : If a nearby star went supernova (explodes), it would endanger life in the solar system. *Alien Invasion: Intelligent aliens would come to earth, leading to either a direct or indirect genocidal event. *Evolution : Possible, as subspecies could evolve and branch off into new species. Unnatural evolution and Directed evolution could also affect evolution. Here are some that aren't as common or well explained *New predation: a new better predator comes out of the blue and hunts easy, frail humans. As seen in the case of the Lions of Tanzania, any predation on humans would become futile. *Grey goo: nanobots eat through all organic matter on Earth. *Sudden loss or decrease of the sun's output: (ex. our rotation grows eliptical). *Voluntary human extinction, *Plasma discharge from the sun, *Genetic relapse and/or collapse - 99% of all species that have gone extinct died from genetic collapse or relapse, due to a natural cycle. category:Human extinction Category:Topics